Thursday, July 27, 2017

Dunkirk

This is a good movie. I liked how it was set in three parts: in the air, on the land and in the sea. Once I twigged to it I also enjoyed how the three parts were interlinked and backtracked.

The initial scene and how the gun fire turned into the film score I found annoying, but it ceased to be noticeable after this. I think I'd been listening out for the high pitch of the German machine gun which is quite different to the drum/bass line that eventuated.

The story was secondary to the visuals, but the cinematography built structure with the interleaving of the air, land and sea. Occasionally this was let down by positioning of the vessels and men close and then distant, but this would also be part of the backtracking of the time lines.

The air segments were the best. The naval segments impressive and the land, with its large crowds, was seamless.

This was not a movie about the battle, but about the rescue. No heroes, just people doing their duty. No glory, just plenty of the horror of war. It might not have been intentional, but by the end all the soldiers started to look the same, further emphasising the absence of glory and heroes.

4 comments:

My wife and I saw Dunkirk this past weekend too. Before we attended, I offered that it was not really a "war" movie but a "human condition" movie. She bought that. Not knowing the historical events supporting the movie, my wife was at times confused. After the movie ended and I filled in some of the gaps for her, she said the movie was about "guys trying to get on boats and guys trying to get off of boats." Well, I really couldn't argue with that!

Near my house is a Super-IMAX (i.e. extremely huge) theatre, with surround sound, etc. Because it was a sell-out, I sat closer to the screen than I usually do, and wound up being glad of it--the experience was simply incredible. As with most movies, details were not always perfect, but it didn't matter at all to me. It was one of the post powerful, overwhelming cinematic experiences I've ever had.

Excellent. I saw it on VMAX which might not be the same as Super-IMAX, but was certainly big and did the film justice. Some of the immersion scenes were very intense, more so I imagine being up real close.